It's better to burn out than to fade away
by saltedshotgun
Summary: Dean gets cursed to never heal and breaks his ribs. And then he gets a fever. Sam and Bobby deal with it, with Lucifer in tow.


**It's better to burn out than to fade away  
**Dean, Sam, Bobby. Gen.  
**  
**_Summary:_ Dean gets cursed to never heal and breaks his ribs. And then he gets a fever. Sam (and Bobby) deal with it, with Lucifer in tow.  
_Notes:_ Fic is unbeta'd, english is not my first language.  
_Disclaimer: _I only wish they were mine.

* * *

Most of the things Dean and Sam hunt are really fucked up – pretty much all of them are. But this one? This one takes the cake.

"A ghost of a witch?" Dean asks, unbelieving. He looks like a fish freshly plucked from baneath the surface, sitting on the ground with his legs spread and eyebrows raised, mouth gaping open. Sam can't help but laugh.

"Apparently, dude," he grins and holds out his hand to help Dean up.

"I think she tried to curse me," Dean says but makes no move to reach for Sam's hand, just sits on the ground stupidly and stares somewhere behind Sam. Sam's smile falters when he notices how pale Dean is and how rapidly he's breathing.

"You think?"

"I think she _tried_," Dean repeats and finally looks at Sam with his brows furrowed. "But we got her, right? Last time I got cursed by a witch Dad ganked and salt an' burned her and everything was cool."

"Alright," Sam draws out and shakes his outstretched palm a little, "so come on, up, now."

Dean grabs Sam's hand and lets himself be hoisted up. He gasps and almost topples over, clutching at his abdomen. Sam holds him steady by the shoulders for a second until Dean pulls himself together and shrughs Sam's hands off.

"I think my ribs might be broken," he mutters and starts limping towards their imposter-Impala car. Sam sighs and sets off after Dean, wondering if Dean's ribs ever even heal given how often he breaks them.

"In this line of work nothing broken ever gets fixed," Lucifer chirps in happily from behind Sam's shoulder but Sam ignores him and rather calls after Dean, "so tell me about that time you got cursed by a witch!"

Dean turns around slowly giving Sam the best version of the _don't-annoy-the-eldest_ face he can muster while wincing with every second step.

They pack their shit and hightail it out of the city.

* * *

Two weeks and one incident-free hunt later Dean is still clutching at his ribs more often then not but Sam's head is too full of his Lucifer hallucinations to really think about it.

* * *

"Sam, I think something's not right," Dean admits one evening and Sam's head snaps up from the computer screen.

"What?" he asks and tries to act like he's not surprised that Dean actually _admitted_ to something not being okay. Sam knows the job taught them better then to hide injuries.

"I think my ribs are not healing right?" Dean says it like a question and he sounds sheepish, like he's actually embarassed about it. "And before you start," he adds hastily when he hears Sam take a deep breath, "I've been careful, alright? I've been avoiding any... Exerting them and stuff, you know?" Dean says and he looks bitter. "It's not like I'm enjoying this."

Sam mentally counts to five and then asks, "you wanna get it checked out?"

Dean nods.

* * *

"It's a good thing you came immediatelly after breaking them," the doctor says with a smile and both Sam's and Dean's eyebrows go up.

"You see, people think broken ribs are not a big deal and expect them to heal fine on their own - especially young men like you," he adds and flashes Dean another wide smile, "but sometimes there are other severe injuries present and – "

"Isn't it funny that Dean's technically seventy-odd years old and still gets called young?" Lucifer wonders, sitting too close to Sam and leaning even closer. "Thirty years of misery up here and forty years of pain down there... Of course, you suffered for much longer," Lucifer counts and Sam tries his hardest not to yell at him to shut the fuck up finally.

"You are lucky, though," the doctor continues like nothing's happening, like there isn't the Devil sitting among them and it takes Sam a second to realize that there _isn't_.

Dean is watching Sam from the corners of his eyes.

" – will heal nicely given the right care," the doctor is saying when Sam starts paying attention again.

They listen to the doctor run his mouth for a few more minutes and Sam concentrates really hard on listening to _him_ and not to Lucifer, while Dean concentrates really hard on Sam.

"What the actual hell," Sam asks once the doctor leaves them alone. "It's been weeks since you broke the ribs... Right?"

He tries to remember if there's something he might have spaced out through.

"Yeah," Dean says, "I think it's the curse, Sam. It did say something about never healing ever again and whatnot."

"What?"

"The curse. Few weeks back, Wisconsin?" Dean says, eyebrows quirked up. "The ghost of a witch we ganked?"

"Yeah, I remember that," Sam snaps, "but I thought you said the curse broke when we burned her bones!"

"Yeah, I thought it did," Dean sighs and shrugs, wincing while doing so. "Guess I was wrong."

* * *

They call Bobby because they always call Bobby and Bobby, as usual, tells them off for not dealing with it sooner.

"Getting cursed by a fricking ghost can't be the same as getting cursed by a living person, idjits!"

"But – " Sam starts and licks his lips while glancing at Dean who lays stretched over his bed.

"But nothing. You're in this job long enough to know that," Bobby says and for a few seconds there's only crackling from his end and then he asks, "how is he doing?"

"He's... He has broken ribs," Sam says and Dean looks at him and raises his eyebrows.

"Could be worse," Bobby huffs and after a beat, "how are you?"

Sam very, very pointedly doesn't look at Lucifer who's sitting in the corner of the motel room smiling.

"I'm fine, Bobby," he says and Bobby huffs again.

"Of course you are. Anyway, you two stay put, hole up somewhere and don't get into any trouble while I try to find out how to break this thing."

"Will do," Sam replies.

"I'm serious. If Dean manages to slit his throat somehow – "

"We get it, Bobby, alright?" Sam says and he looks at his brother again, who's sprawled over the bed with closed eyes and his face is wrinkled with pain.

"Alright," Bobby says, "I'll get back to you as soon as I know something. Take care of your idjit of a brother."

Then he hangs up and the room goes quiet, the silence only disturbed by the soft humming noises from the outside.

Dean takes a deep breath and says, "I've got a papercut that won't heal," and he sounds like a five year old kid and Sam chuckles.

* * *

The problem is that they have no money. They had to ditch all their credit cards because of the Leviathans and they need to stay somewhere.

Sam offers to hustle some pool even though that's usually Dean's job since he's better at it anyway – and Sam's happy to leave it to him because he doesn't even enjoy it like Dean does, but it's not like Dean can play and win with never-healing broken ribs.

Dean refuses to let Sam go alone and goes with him. They each manage to get a shiny new black-eye because drunk men are only rarely willing to hand over their money, but Dean's probably won't disappear until Bobby manages to find a way to break the curse. Dean seems more upset about this than he is about the curse in general and Sam thinks that in a way it's actually extremely funny.

They go back to their motel and pay for another few nights and they watch cable and eat pizza all day long. Dean's annoyed but he's not stupid, although Sam ocassionally doubts that, and he knows they have to stay under the radar.

Sam imagines all kinds of ways Dean could get himself into real trouble now – ways that wouldn't even make them blink under normal circumstances. Open cuts, illnesses, food poisoning. It's kind of common in their lives but now, with the curse over Dean, they could all eventually become deadly.

Sam's pretty sure that Dean very aware of this, even though he whines endlessly about being bored and wanting to get on the road again, and he sits on his ass in front of the television and watches terrible soap operas that give Sam a headache.

* * *

It's been four days since they left the motel room for any longer than necessary to get some food and did anything more than watched movies and one Dr. Sexy marathon ("this should be a form of torture," Lucifer said) when Dean gets sick.

* * *

Sam wakes up to find Dean curled up on his bed under the covers, breathing hard and shivering.

"Dean?" he says as he gets out of his own bed and crosses the distance between him and his brother. "Dude, you should be laying on your back."

"Leave me alone, Sam," Dean croaks and he doesn't sound sick, only cranky and tired and like he's in pain. "I have a headache from hell," he adds, and Sam cringes when Lucifer chuckles from somewhere behind him.

"Can I get you something?" he asks and Dean just shakes his head and moans.

"Not like it would help anyway, right?" he mumbles and turns to his back with a wince and a gasp. "Did Bobby call?" he asks and Sam translates it as _the pain is getting really fucking bad, Sammy_.

"No," he replies truthfully, "I'll call him, alright?"

"Yeah," Dean sighs and closes his eyes again.

* * *

"There's not much lore on getting cursed by ghost witches, believe it or not," Bobby says.

"There must be something – " Sam very nearly whines into the phone.

"There is," Bobby says, "I just have to find it. How is he?"

"I think he's getting sick," Sam glances at his brother. Dean is tense, hands fisted by his sides. Weeks of freshly broken ribs and a headache from hell, as Dean put it, will probably do this to you.

"Balls," Bobby says and Sam agrees. "How bad is it?"

"Not too bad," Sam says.

* * *

He should have known better, he should have known that saying this was like begging the universe to prove them once again how fucked up their lives actually were.

Because another wo days later Dean gets a fever.

* * *

"You need to drink something, Dean," Sam says and hands him a glass. Dean is sitting on the bed, hunched over with his head hanging low. He's pale and green and he keeps swallowing.

"I can't," he says with a weak voice, "I'll just puke again, Sammy."

"At least try," Sam says and he sounds just as miserable as his brother looks.

* * *

The thing with Dean and fevers is that it always breaks all his inhibitions. Dean gets clingy and whiney and generally acts like a kid, maybe because he could never really afford to be one. And he gets chatty, too.

It reminds Sam of the time when Dean got back from Hell all those years ago, in another life time. Dean got pulled from hell, undergone an angelic repair and his immune system had been all kinds of messed up. He used to get feverish on nearly daily basis but it always were just low-grade fevers making Dean slow and cranky. It was never as bad as it is now.

Sam remembers how he used to sneak out each night, leaving his feverish brother alone. He wonders if Dean used to get flashbacks from hell, too ("of course, Sam!" Lucifer says, "breaking him was crucial to my plan, you think we let him get away easy? Everyone would break under that kind of torture, everyone would be getting flashbacks – ") and he feels more guilty than he has in a long time.

* * *

Sam calls Bobby. "I don't know what to do," he admits. "Nothing I do will make the fever go down, painkillers are not working. I don't know what to _do_," he says and his voice edges on hysterical now. He hears Dean's deep breaths from the other side of the room but he sounds like he's anything but resting.

"Just stay put, kid," Bobby says. "That's the best you can do right now. I don't have anything yet and moving him much wouldn't do him any good."

Sam nods and when he realizes Bobby can't see him he clears his throath and croaks, "alright."

"Try to get his fever down, even if it's not helping. It can't hurt any, right?"

"Yeah."

"Just generally treat him as if he were normally sick," Bobby says, "and I swear I'll do everything I can to figure this out as fast as possible."

"Okay," Sam croaks again and his throat aches.

* * *

"Sammy," Dean moans, "I know you're seeing him."

Sam is next to Dean in a heartbeat. "What?"

"Lucifer," Dean says and licks his lips, hazy eyes fixed on the ceiling. "I know you keep seeing him, I notice everytime you do."

"Dean," Sam says and he wants to reach out and smooth Dean's hair back from his forehead. "Don't worry about that now, alright?"

"You know he's not real, right? You gotta know that..." Dean says, voice trailing off. He licks his lips again and his eyelids flicker and close.

* * *

Dean opens his eyes and that itself hurts like thousands of needles behind his eyelids. It's dark in the room, dim as if the sun was setting while the blinds were closed and it's quiet. Dean turns his head and focuses on the figure on the other bed that has to be Sam, hunched with his knees drawn up to his chin. His eyes are fixed somewhere in the corner of the room and he winces every now and then.

Dean turns his head again and looks at the ceiling. His head feels like it's on fire, like something's clawing at the inside of his skull, dragging a barbed wire through his brain.

There are two eyes staring at Dean from the ceiling, blinking and they're black and white and yellow and then the ceiling opens up and Dean is falling through the flames.

* * *

"I saw him, Sammy," Dean says while Sam drags him into the bathroom and shoves him under the shower, fully clothed.

"Fuck," Dean grits out once the water hits his head, "cold. Sam, it's too cold."

"No, it's not. We need to get your temperature down," Sam replies and holds Dean up even though he knows it's pointless – nothing will get Dean's fever down now.

For a moment the water looks like blood, pouring over Sam's hands, over his brother's body, but then Sam shakes his head.

"It's cold, Sam," Dean repeats but he's not fighting, he's just sagging against the wall with only Sam's hands holding him up. "I saw him."

"Who?"

"Lucifer," Dean says and his head feels heavy so he lets it fall to his chest, "I saw him in your body once, he looked," Dean swallows, "looked nothing like you and he, he broke my neck."

"Dean," Sam sighs but his throat is tight. "It was just a dream, alright? I'm still me. I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere."

"Wasn't a dream," Dean mumbles and he looks up at Sam with bloodshot eyes and furrowed brow. "It was the future. Zachariah..." Dean pauses and Sam notices he's shivering now. "He sent me to the future where you said yes."

"Zachariah was a manipulative fucker," Sam spits but his voice is shaking, "I didn't say yes, Dean."

Dean's head is lolling on his chest but Sam knows he's still awake because his knees are holding him up somehow.

"Dean, look at me," Sam says. "I never said yes, alright? It's over."

Lucifer is laughing from somewhere behind him and Dean lifts his head to look at Sam and says, "it's cold, Sammy."

* * *

Dean sleeps in fits and starts, trashing around and waking up gasping for breath from the pain and from the fear, too. Sam always wakes with Dean, his sleep light on good days let alone when his brother is frying his brain in the bed next to him with Sam being unable to do anything to help him.

Dean's clutching at Sam's forearms and pants, mumbles nonsense and Sam's name, sometimes asks for Dad or Mom and Sam's heart is breaking.

Sometimes Dean is more or less lucid, aware of his surroundings. Then he pushes Sam away and groans, swallows and apologizes.

"Go back to sleep," he says, "I'm fine."

_You're not,_ Sam wants to say, _your body is shutting down and it terrifies me._ But he just nods and pats Dean on the shoulder gently and gets back into his bed.

He doesn't look at Lucifer who watches them from his spot in the corner of the room with an amused grin on his face.

* * *

Dean doesn't eat or drink and when Sam forces him to swallow few sips of water he trows it up all over his blankets. Sam drags him out of the bed and sits him on his own and Dean sags down, his shoulders hanging in defeat and he mumbles, "sorry, Sammy."

* * *

Sam researches, too. He researches curses but it's a lost cause and nothing useful ever comes up.

He researches fevers, not for the first time in his life, but it's a way to kill the time when Dean's out of it and Sam is stuck in complete silence disturbed only by his brother's ragged breathing.

It makes sense, Sam thinks, that Dean got a fever even when he's not really sick. It's a symptom of sorts, it's Dean's body trying desperately to heal itself and not being allowed to by the curse.

Sam almost wants to laugh with how ironic this is, being slowly murdered by your own defenses.

* * *

Bobby calls Sam once to tell him he doesn't have anything yet.

"I'm getting close, boy. We'll get him out of this."

He doesn't ask how Dean is. He doesn't ask how Sam is, either.

* * *

Dean wakes up and asks Sam for a drink, begs him for it. "Please, Sammy, please," he mumbles and gazes at him from behind heavy swollen eyelids. Sam just shakes his head.

"Not a good idea, Dean," he says and Dean closes his eyes and swallows. "Imagine the never-ending hangover," Sam tries to joke but Dean just narrows his eyes at him.

"Imagine the never-ending withdrawal," he rasps and closes his eyes again.

Sam almost wants to yell at Dean_, ha! So you admit you have a problem!_ but Lucifer starts shouting something about demon blood and Sam remembers what it's like to be craving a drug, those thousands of nagging little voices under your skin begging you to provide.

He gets Dean a beer from the fridge and tells himself he's doing the right thing.

* * *

It's the middle of the night one day later when Bobby calls again.

"Please tell me you found something," Sam says and he must sound really fucking desperate because Bobby's breath hitches over the phone.

"That bad?" he asks and Sam chokes out a bitter laugh.

"Even worse. Tell me you found something," he says again.

"I found _something_," Bobby says, "but it's kind of a shot in the dark, Sam."

"I don't care, Bobby, I just... Have to do something. Anything."

"Get your asses over here, then, I'll get everything ready," Boby says and Sam feels like crying.

"Give us 10 hours," he says instead and hangs up. He turns around to look at Dean who is sitting on the bed with his hair matted and skin clammy, eyes sunken. He still has the shiner around his left eye and from what Sam can see his abdomen is covered in purplish bruises, too, from his broken ribs.

"Dean, we need to get to Bobby's," Sam tells him and he starts packing their things quickly, throwing them in their duffles messily, unfolded.

"Uh-huh," Dean mumbles and gets up from the bed to trail after Sam, obviously trying to help him pack up. He's swaying on his feet, though, and Sam pushes him back onto the bed.

"No, no, no. You sit down, let me handle this, alright? Take it easy," he tells him and Dean looks at him.

"I'm just trying to help," he says and his voice sounds off, weak and broken.

"I know, just... Take it easy, Dean. You're sick, remember?" Sam says and Dean gives him such a look he almost laughs out loud.

"No, I'm not, actually," he mumbles and closes his eyes. Sam pushes him down so Dean's laying and then goes back to packing their things.

* * *

The drive to Bobby is one of the longest ones Sam remembers. He remembers some that were really fucking terrifying and seemed eternal at the time, like the 20 minutes to the hospital when Dad almost got his guts clawed out by that werewolf, or the 10 minutes long walk to the Impala when Dean punctured his lung and kept coughing up blood. But this is the worst one Sam can think of, with Dean sagged next to him, breathing through his mouth like he's going to be sick (but when Sam asks he just moans, "nah, I'm good,") and his mouth running non-stop.

* * *

"What are we doing, Sam?" he asks, and Sam glances at him for a second.

"What do you mean?"

"When we get to Bobby's, what are we doing?"

"We're breaking the curse," Sam says and prays that Dean drops the topic, prays that Dean falls asleep for at least a little while.

"How?" Dean asks instead. His head is resting against the cold window but his cheeks are still flushed, his eyes circled by deep purple, left one more noticeably than the right one but there's not much difference now, Sam thinks. Dean keeps blinking but his eyes never really fully open.

"I don't know," Sam admits, "Bobby didn't say."

"Sam," Dean moans. "Promise me you won't play God again or something, Sammy."

Sam grips the wheel a little bit tighter and clams his mouth shut.

"Sam," Dean says again and Sam sees him lift his head and look at him in his peripheral vision. "Sam you gotta promise, alright? We can't... Keep making the same mistakes over and over again."

"Dean, I won't, alright? Bobby wouldn't let me do anything like that, you know?"

"Just promise me," Dean says, "that you won't. Because last time..." Dean's voice trails off again and he takes a few deep and quick breaths. "Last time you tried people died because of me, Sam," Dean finishes and Sam closes his eyes for a second because he would rather not remember that.

"This is different, Dean, okay?"

Dean says nothing and his head drops against the window again.

Sam thinks Dean finally fell asleep when he starts talking again.

"I'm sorry, Sam," he says and his voice is higher than usual, even rougher and more broken than before. Sam turns his head to look at Dean and he sees his brother's eyes are glazy again, his eyelids heavy.

"I wish I could take it back, take it all back," Dean mumbles.

"Take what back, Dean?"

"Everything," Dean says without missing a beat, "I kept breaking the only natural rule I ever believed was true and look what came of it," he swallows, "I knew what it's like to come back from the dead, I knew it's not right and I still brought you back, again and again, and..." Dean pauses and takes a shaky breath, "I wish I didn't, Sam," he says and Sam jerks his head to look at his brother. Dean's cheeks are almost purple against the rest of his face and his eyes are closed, his chin trembling.

"I wish I didn't. Back in Cold Oak, I wish I knew better and let you – " Dean takes a shaky breath, "I brought you back and look what happened, I went to Hell and started the apocalypse and then _you_ had to go to hell and now you're stuck with Satan in your head, Sam," he blurts out while Sam pulls the car over to a stop.

"I wish I could have let you die back then, because none of this would have happened," Dean says and Sam swallows painfully. "It's all my fault," Dean says and there's a tear coming down from the corner of his eye and then another. "I caused all this, Sammy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and he goes on and on.

Sam tries to shush him but doesn't dare to reach out, because Dean wouldn't react well to that – never has and will.

Dean stops mumbling apologies after a few minutes and only wheezes with his head hanging low, his broken ribs preventing him from taking deep breaths. After a moment he lifts his head and looks around like he doesn't know where he is and turns to look at Sam.

"Why did you stop?" he asks. Sam just blinks and shakes his head and starts the car again.

He waits until he's absolutely sure Dean's asleep, or maybe passed out, before he dabs at his own stinging eyes. He thinks about what Dean said and he gets it, he really does. He remembers the blind panic and fright he felt when he realized he traded Dean's life for another back in Nevada when he brought him to the faith healer. And Sam is glad his brother's alive, he's glad he managed to save him but he wishes he managed to do all that without wasting another life.

Sam thinks how his brother believes his actions jumpstarted the Apocalypse and he understands what Dean was trying to tell him.

"Big brother wishes you were dead, Sam," Lucifer says from the backseat and Sam almost, almost smiles because he knows it's not true.

* * *

Sam tries to wake Dean up few hours later, but Dean's head just lolls from side to side but his eyes don't open. He's burning to the touch and Sam panics a little when he realizes that if they don't manage to break the curse soon Dean probably won't wake up again.

* * *

He pulls up in front of the cabin Bobby's staying in now at the same time Bobby runs out the front door.

"Help me get him inside," Sam barks at him and runs over to open the passenger door, pulling Dean halfway out. His skin is pale and clammy and his breathing is shallow.

"Balls," Bobby says when he sees Dean but he doesn't hesitate for even a moment before he grabs Dean's legs and helps Sam carry him inside.

"How long has he been like this?" Bobby asks.

"Too long," Sam answers and turns to look at Bobby.

"Whatever we're doing we gotta to do it fast," he says and Bobby just nods.

* * *

The ritual is closer to witchcraft than Sam feel comfortable with and Dean would probably flip his shit if he knew, but Sam is desperate enough to go with it.

"It's safe, Sam," Bobby assures him, "I checked it. It's meant to break a curse cast by someone just before their death," he says while he collects things scattered around the small room. "It's more difficult to break than an ordinary curse, since normally curses are bound to the witches themselves or some objects, like the hex bags. This one – not so much."

"But Dean didn't get cursed by someone dying," Sam says, dumbfounded.

"Yeah, well, it's the closest thing I found, boy."

"But what if it doesn't work!" Sam can feel the panic creeping up on him again.

"We'll worry about that when it happens," Bobby says and looks at Sam.

* * *

"Witches go to Hell, Sam," Lucifer sings.

* * *

They go through the ritual but nothing happens - Dean is still unconscious and wheezing, and for the first time since this whole thing started Sam actually full-on freaks out.

"What are we going to do?" he shrieks at Bobby crouching next to his brother who's sprawled over the couch like a ragdoll.

"We'll wait," Bobby says and he looks incredibly tired now that Sam finally looks at him, "the ritual wasn't meant to magically heal him, Sam. It just broke the curse."

"And what if it didn't?" Sam asks and slumps down onto the floor, suddenly feeling just as exhausted as Bobby looks.

"Then we'll deal with it," Bobby says.

* * *

Sam eventualy falls asleep still sitting on the ground next to the couch. He dreams of Hell and ghost witches with their teeth fallen out and he dreams of being Lucifer and snapping Dean's neck between his fingers like it's nothing.

Then he wakes up with a start when someone thwacks him over the head lightly. He gasps and looks around and his eyes stop wandering when he sees Dean who's still pale but awake, with opened eyes and a weary grin.

Sam scrambles to his knees and presses the back of his hand to Dean forehead. It's cold and Dean rolls his eyes.

"Guess you guys broke the curse," he says and closes his eyes again.


End file.
